Writing books and setting up a theory, doing scholarly research and doing good to society

It was the 'World Intellectual Property Day' on April 26, 2007. More and more colleagues participated in the increasingly prosperous intellectual property career of China, and they were very active in various activities for propaganda of intellectual property protection; but for Mr. Zheng Chengsi who made a pioneering and a fundamental contribution to the intellectual property career must be concerned about the whole things as always and delightedly. In the twinkling of an eye, Mr. Zheng Chengsi was away from us for more than half a year. As a pupil and colleague to the teacher of Zheng Chengsi, we called up other two fellow brothers in different positions who engaged in the research for intellectual property law , in the ways of mutual interview to remember the teacher in the special day.

Guan Yujing (hereinafter called Guan): Brother Tang, you were the first postgraduate student of Zheng teacher, later you stilled worked around Zheng teacher, so you can be the one who knew the most about teacher in all aspects. So please talk about Mr.Zheng in your eyes.

Tang Guangliang (hereinafter called Tang): I have been acquainted with Zheng teacher since twenty years ago. At that time, he was much younger than I am now, but he was a famous scholar indeed, because he was one of the first mentors for postgraduate students enrolled on research of intellectual property law,  he began to experience the process of training talents on intellectual property law. During the work for training postgraduate students in about twenty years,  athough restricted by system and factors, he cannot enroll too many students in his own name, there were countless persons who listened to Zheng's lessons in different situations and opportunities and therefore benefited from his instructions. From this point, it is surely and appropriate to say that Zheng teacher has students everywhere.

As far as I know, Zheng teacher was completely through his own hard work and diligence and gradually became a famous scholar from a common cadre in mining area and a undergraduate graduated before cultural Revolution. His life was surely filled with hardness and difficulties though his life path was not twists and turns.

Guan: I have seen Zheng teacher's academic brief biography wrote by himself, in which mentioned that he learned foreign language by himself and stepped on academic road in hard environment. The teacher expressed his own academic career with the words "confidence and never complacent", thought carefully and study with great concentration until the final moment of life. Hard life seriously affected his physical health, but it seemed to make no difference at his excellent achievement. I entered myself for the examination of doctoral student of Zheng teacher, just because I was deeply impressed by his instructions on intellectual property and the most plentiful and impressive wirings second to none. It is said that Zheng teacher is the first one on China intellectual property. So Which achievements does Zheng teacher have made? What is his most academic contributions actually?

Tang: Mr. Zheng was indifference to fame and wealth during his lifetime, so definitely he did not care how people would assess him on status after his death. Even so, I think that he deserves to be called "one of the founders on China intellectual property law and law system". Writing books and setting up a theory, doing scholarly research and doing good to society is Zheng teacher's lifetime pursuit. He was transferred to work in Scientific Socialism Research Institute in 1979, and learned at graduate school in London School of Economics UK from 1981 to 1983. Three years after he returned China, he was titled as "expert of national class" in 1986; he was employed as counselor for International Copyright Society in 1988; and was awarded "National model worker" in 1989; in 1990, he was employed as editorial board member for "Europe Intellectual Property" magazine, was employed as the international editorial board member for "World Copyright" magazine of London, employed as the editorial board member for "China Law" and other magazines, and as the professor for Peking University in the same year. In 1992, he was a member of expert panel for Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation; he was elected as the vice director for China Copyright Seminar in 1993, and became a committee member for the Chinese academy of social sciences on academic degrees committee in the same year; he was listed as the arbitrator for World Intellectual Property Organization in 1994, and was appointed as the dean of intellectual property center for Chinese academy of social sciences; he was elected as executive committee for the international intellectual property rights association for the promotion of teaching and research in 1995, and he was re-elected in 1997 and 1999; he was employed as a committee for Beijing Arbitration Committee in 1998, was elected as the committee for the ninth and tenth session of the National People's Congress and Legal committee of the National People's Congress in 1998 and 2003; in 1999 and 2004, he was the specially invited consultant for Supreme People's Court; he was elected as the president for research association of Intellectual property law under China Law Society in 2001 and 2004; he was the adviser for "China Inventions and Patents" magazine in 2003, became a committee of counselor committee for the research center of intellectual property and technology law in University of Edinburgh; he was continuously rated as one of "the world's most influential fifty persons in property intellectual area" in England "Intellectual Property" in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

In 1979, through the translation of "Trademark Law Summary for each country", he first introduced the latest international intellectual property system to China. He translated and published the "Basis for Patent Law" and first published the thesis about patent system and commercial secret protection, which had an important effect on the first patent law and other related legislation for our country in 1985. In 1984, he published the first national intellectual property monograph "Some problems for intellectual property", which became the "foundation works" for our nation's intellectual property field. The "Summary of Industrial Property Right With International Convention" published in 1985 was the nation's first monograph that stated industrial property right with global and regional conventions, the "Chinese International Law Yearbook" evaluated the monograph as "fill the gaps on international protection research field of intellectual property in our nation". His "Copyright Law", "Intellectual Property Theory" and other works were re-published for many times and impressively affected research and teaching of China intellectual property, and thus became the classic works in the history of our intellectual property research. In the past twenty years, he treated academics as life, with continuous writing, and published another three dozen works about Chinese and English monographs, and published hundreds of academic papers in Chinese and foreign languages. Mr.Zheng Chengsi's “Chinese Intellectual Property" was considered as the teaching material for training officers in developing countries by the unified Nations World Intellectual Property Organization. The scholars in India, Canada, Germany, America, Israel and other countries gave high evaluation for his academic achievement in the academic publication or monographs in their own country.

In 1985, Zheng teacher published a book called "Information, New Technology and Intellectual Property", and systematically illustrated the nature of "Information" for intellectual property object, he and Australia professor Michael Pendleton put forward the " information property" theory internationally at nearly the same time. In 1987, Zheng teacher made a complete statement for "information property" in his published book "Law Protection for Computer, Software and Data". Afterwards this important theory's innovative findings were recommended by "European Intellectual Property Review" and other international academic publications. Western scholars began to discuss this theory concentrated after 1990; in 1999, "Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act" of America and "Information Security Theory" of Russia adopted this theory and considered "information property" as a formal law term; in 2002, "Strategy Outline of Intellectual Property" and "Basic Law for Intellectual Property" published by Japan thought that information (intellectual) property is the most important property in the 21st century, and put forward the basic national policy "Information innovates age, intellectual property builds the country" . Zheng teacher often modestly said that he himself did not know technology, and thus he was very cautious when stating the new problems brought by so called new technology. But the fact testifies that whether the new problems brought by new technology or the new problems related with traditional knowledge, teacher's views and opinions was accurate and very advanced. Except the above mentioned "information property", his statement about the elements for damage liabilities and statement on source and flow relation between traditional knowledge and modern intellectual property protection, as well as the statements of intellectual property is the ox nose for Chinese economy had great effect on related fields.

Nowadays, Mr.Zheng's writings still exist though he has passed away, his writings as a must-read for the intellectuals of Chinese intellectual property will be passed down from generation to generation, benefit the nation, society and the public.

Guan: Zheng teacher's academic contribution is obvious to all, but he never considers himself to be everyone. On the contrary, he is broad-minded and reasonable. When discussing academic problems, he would accept all views as long as the views had reasonable evidence and whatever the person was famous or not. Once he realized that the person's idea is more reasonable, he would be actively contact and discuss much further with that person. Moreover, if Zheng teacher appreciated one researcher's academic ideas, he would actively recommend the researcher to others. From this point, I am very impressive. When I wrote the doctoral papers, I discussed object problems of intellectual property with Zheng teacher. And he recommended me to consult Zhu Xianqun's ideas about doctoral papers "Innovative Intellectual Findings and Intellectual Property". As far as I know, Zheng teacher recommended Zhu Xianqun's statement on basic theory on information property for more than one time. Now we invite Mr. Zhu to talk about that experience.

Zhu Xianqun (hereinafter called Zhu): Zheng teacher's academic thought is very plentiful, in the basic theory of intellectual property and each department laws, as well as in some law fields, he is very powerful. So I think that Zheng teacher's opinions on "Problems of the relations for information and intellectual property" or "Information nature of intellectual property object" has an important position in his academic thought system and is one of his most excellent academic achievements. If I use one sentence to summary this relation from the most primitive starting point, I think it may be the "Intellectual property object presents certain information" described in clause V of "Civil Law-Intellectual Property Chapter (expert's proposals)". Because "Information nature of intellectual property object" and subsequently formed "Information property" concepts were first proposed by Zheng teacher and his classmates when they studied abroad in the middle 1980s in the world. Afterwards Zheng teacher made a deep and complete thought and illustration for that. At the end 1980s, "European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR)" and other international academic publications recommended this great theory innovation. After 1990, western countries began to discuss this theory intensively. In 1999, "Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act" of America and "Information Security Theory" of Russia adopted this theory and considered "information property" as a formal law term; in 2002, "Strategy Outline of Intellectual Property" and "Basic Law for Intellectual Property" published by Japan thought that information (intellectual) property is the most important property in the 21st century, and put forward the basic national policy "Information innovates age, intellectual property builds the country" . So we can say that Zheng teacher's originating in the exploration and application for these theories and opinions are still flourishing internationally nowadays, and will continuously deepening and have new development and progress.

"The object nature of intellectual property is certain information" plays a role of "radically reform" for current intellectual property system. Because it was affected by visible property right concept and intuitive life facts for a long time, everyone still has confusion on understanding of the features of intellectual right and corresponding system arrangement. After "the information nature of intellectual property" was put forward, some problems were becoming obvious or at least has self-justification answers. The information and object have great distinctions, the most basic distinction was that information can be sharing; most unspecified persons can master meantime and use the same information. This means that information has no natural exclusiveness and does not have natural interest boundary. Therefore, in order to defuse or avoid interest conflicts caused by information, the interest boundary must be cut artificially and the exclusively used information scope can be delimited, and also delimited the exclusively used scope and exclusively used ways for specified subjects on the aspect of specified information, and thus set up a right of monopoly or exclusiveness. In other words, that information can be exclusive and be exclusive for what kind of person or exist in what ways; all these right factors of exclusiveness for specified information are all set up by persons. So starting from the information nature of object, we can realize that exclusiveness of intellectual property is legal but not exists naturally. Or we can see that intellectual property is created by law has has private right. Therefore, on the premise of not violating international obligation, intellectual property legislation in different countries can set exclusive right with different nature, different degree and different range. The title "Object nature of intellectual property is certain information" also indicates the development for intellectual property system predicates the existence of "Information property". Because on the coming of information age, information gradually becomes the most valuable source and more and more useful information need legal protection correspondingly. The intellectual property has extended to be information property and made the basic source allocation in information society adjusted by law, therefore it lays a firm foundation stone for the formation of property right law system of information society. From macro theoretical level, we can predict that it can effectively avoid and defuse interest conflicts in information society and establish basic interest relation pattern of information society as the information property is enriched and perfect.

Guan: As for information source, it seems to have a trend against intellectual property or information property in domestic nowadays, some scholars and insiders proposed over-protection for China intellectual property, its main reason was that this system violated the basic requirement of information freedom in information society. This trend came at the time when the countrymen had early consciousness on intellectual property and the nation would set its own intellectual property strategy, so it was worth discussing. How do you see this problem?

Zhu: Zheng teacher indicated: “Chinese archaism -Against one advantage is disadvantage, intellectual property system did not have no disadvantage, but as long as the advantage was more than disadvantage, or through 'draw on advantages and avoid disadvantages', the final result was  advantages far outweighed the disadvantage, we could not deny it." therefore, one of the basic standpoint for our intellectual property strategy should be "draw on advantages and avoid disadvantages" but not throw away the apple because of the core. The world was coming into a information society, the development of intellectual economy was flourishing, the information and knowledge that taking innovative intellectual findings as the core is the most basic production factor and becomes the most important fortune, the interest conflicts surrounded by knowledge and information is more and more intense. Intellectual property and information property system has become the main policy tool for propelling economic development and society progress and promoting core competency, and become one of the most important economic operation rule for knowledge economy age. Because our country is at the imitating stage for technology, introduction, digestion, absorption and re-innovation still occupy an important status, weaken intellectual property protection is conducive to introduction, digestion, absorption and re-innovation? I am afraid not. After weakening, more possible results will cause rebound of developed countries, and thus our technology export will be controlled more strictly or even be blocked, "core technology cannot be bought". If our country adopts weakening policy, it will only weaken the protection level of intellectual property, but it cannot commonly lower the existed protection standard of international society. Because that is like asking a tiger for its skin. In this case, complaint and condemn cannot at least solve substantive problems. From another point of view, our intellectual property legislation does not obviously higher than the standard in "Trips". If re-weakening, it will have the risk of violating international obligation. In that case, whether we would quit multi-lateral system of WTO, and return to maintain more unilateral relationship of more difficulty and higher cost? Or more thoroughly return to the age of "seclude the country from the outside world"? Of course, in practice, intellectual property is mis-used indeed, which would possibly have bad effect on society, but any right has the possibility of being mis-used. From the point of our actual situation currently, Zheng teacher mentioned that some specifications prohibiting mis-use of intellectual property were not set in intellectual property separate law, but existed in the legal documents such as "technology contract" in "Contract Law" and "The supreme people's court on the technology contract dispute applicable laws of the judicial interpretation". Therefore, criticizing "deletion" or "malpractice" of intellectual property protection without directly reading these contents is that they cannot understand related laws.

Tang: the trend against intellectual property will have negative effect on establishment process of Chinese intellectual property law. Most scholars and insiders selected silence and avoidance, but Zheng teacher stood up resolutely and called to further strengthen intellectual property protection, and actively propel the establishment for high-level intellectual property protection system in China through his own influence in the industry and even through form of action. In 2004, without consent of certain network company, millions of books including Zheng teacher's many works are sold to the libraries of each region after digital processing, and are browsed by users through network. After knowing that, in the leadership of Zheng teacher, all colleagues worked at the Intellectual Property Center in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences proceeded against the court and were accused of infringement from the network company, and required the company to bear indemnities and apologized in public. After the case was appealed to the court, many influential insiders in the industry tried to intercede and expected Zheng teacher could lead everyone to withdraw the lawsuit. But Zheng teacher had a very firm attitude, and decided to prohibit that crazy infringement activity, hoped to inspect this legislation protection effectiveness of Chinese intellectual property through this lawsuit activity. After a year or so, the court had a two-tier judgment and finally supported the scholars' litigation positions on behalf of Zheng teacher, and judged defendant to indemnify the economic loss of copyright owner and apologized in public. Although the judgment for apology in public has not been implemented till now, but this case has been evaluated by media as one of the ten intellectual property cases in the year 2005, which showed it has great influence.

Guan: as a scholar, nobody can compare with Zheng teacher on the aspect of promoting establishment and development of Chinese intellectual property law. I always think that it was a pleasant experience each time when I listened to Zheng teacher's speech. He could explain the profound in easy terms and accomplish a task with ease whatever on the aspect of theory research of intellectual property and its practice explanation. How did Zheng teacher do all these things?

Tang: Compared with the "scholar" that we usually know, Zheng teachers special characteristics was that he could express the complicated academic problems in plain language, and thus every listener or reader could understand and master them. Some early readers who read Zheng's works all have the same feeling, which is that Zheng's book is not like "academic works", when reading carefully and then you can realize that only these academic works can show a author's level. Just as Zheng teacher has said, his knowledge came from diligence. He was very serious on academic research and each work, which the common people cannot do it. Almost all well-educated modern persons collect and display hundreds of books in their own homes, but the person who can read all collections is far and between. And Zheng teacher is one of them. Though I dare not say that he read each book on the bookshelf, but I can say that he always read carefully as long as the professional publications were bought by him or received from others and he would note various reading markings. Because he did not familiar with Chinese input method, most of his works were wrote by hand by himself. In the last 20 years of the 20^th century, the total word for Zheng's monographs, papers and published speeches has exceeded 20 million. We can imagine that it was a huge work amount to write the 20 million words by hand. However, compared with "writing", more work was reading, thinking, analyzing, reasoning, judging, concluding and other accumulation and creative labor.

Guan: as a scholar, nobody can compare with Zheng teacher on the aspect of promoting establishment and development of Chinese intellectual property law. I always think that it was a pleasant experience each time when I listened to Zheng teacher's speech. He could explain the profound in easy terms and accomplish a task with ease whatever on the aspect of theory research of intellectual property and its practice explanation. How did Zheng teacher do all these things?

Tang: Compared with the "scholar" that we usually know, Zheng teachers special characteristics was that he could express the complicated academic problems in plain language, and thus every listener or reader could understand and master them. Some early readers who read Zheng's works all have the same feeling, which is that Zheng's book is not like "academic works", when reading carefully and then you can realize that only these academic works can show a author's level. Just as Zheng teacher has said, his knowledge came from diligence. He was very serious on academic research and each work, which the common people cannot do it. Almost all well-educated modern persons collect and display hundreds of books in their own homes, but the person who can read all collections is far and between. And Zheng teacher is one of them. Though I dare not say that he read each book on the bookshelf, but I can say that he always read carefully as long as the professional publications were bought by himself or received from others and he would note various reading markings. Because he did not familiar with Chinese input method, most of his works were wrote by hand by himself. In the last 20 years of the 20^th century, the total word for Zheng's monographs, papers and published speeches has exceeded 20 million. We can imagine that it was a huge work amount to write the 20 million words by hand. However, compared with "writing", more work was reading, thinking, analyzing, reasoning, judging, concluding and other accumulation and creative labor.

As a famous scholar, Zheng teacher never spoke like a book and conducted so called "academic research" in logic reasoning type on the research and thinking of intellectual property problems, but faced the society and based on practice, and made practical research to solve actual problems. Maybe it just because this, his proposed theories can stand the practice. In the eye of Zheng teacher, any academic theories were a solution scheme deliberately designed by certain scholars to solve practical problems. The so called academic theories are only empty and insignificant if they cannot solve practical problems. Under the leadership and influence of Zheng teacher, all researchers worked at the intellectual property center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciencess take practical research as their working target, and thus have made outstanding achievements in each interested field. The academic seminar activities led by the center have almost become the wind vane for frontier issue research of intellectual property field.

Guan: Zheng teacher incontrovertibly became the leader of Chinese intellectual property research field. I think, besides his abundant knowledge, he had the style of "look far ahead and aim high, accomplish achievement by leading a quiet life". Each speech had a sense of mission for caring national development, and absorbed most excellent young people. Meantime, Zheng teacher was a modest, honest, witty, humorous and generous elder, and thus got heart-felt love from people. Dong Tao first visited the teacher after Dong tao entered the school, so he must have deep feelings?

Dong Tao: Zheng teacher was the most classical Chinese intellectual. Some people define the characteristics of Chinese intellectuals as a word "poor and pedantic". I think the "poor" here probably means intellectuals' simple and poor life; "pedantic" probably means intellectuals' pedantry. But the two words have another meaning for Zheng teacher. Zheng teacher was "poor" indeed; I think this was his selected life style. Upon his position in academic circles, it should be very easy to gain material benefits. If nothing else, after I became his student, I did not remember how many phones I received from my classmates and friends. Most of them wanted to invite Zheng teacher to attend various seminars, expert discussion meeting, issuing legal opinions and cooperation of studying various subjects and so on by means of me. Hardly any companies would invite him as case agent, because they all knew that they cannot invite Zheng teacher to act as their agent. But we can suppose that if he was willing to act as a case agent, even if he charged the lawyer fees three to four times higher than common lawyer, the company representatives would visit him too frequently, so anybody should not have doubt about this suppose? The personality for Chinese traditional intellectuals of "The gentleman sees righteousness; the petty mansees profit." has the most presentation on Zheng teacher. I have read a book, which discussed the difference of innovation mechanism between Chinese and America. It mentioned that the "Heavy Righteousness Light Benefit" education killed innovative spirit of Chinese, because if people lose the pursuit of material benefit, they will lose the aggressive motivation. But when reading works of Zheng teacher, who dare say that his life lost aggressive motivation? Of course, we do not count on each person's life reaching the teacher's height. Let us lower one level or several levels, when anybody between us face money temptation, even only some petty profits, how many people do not lose basic principle, not sell their souls and not violate laws? Surely the teacher was only "poor" by himself, but he did not expect all intellectuals were "poor", because his life research was the intellectual property law of "making knowledge becomes property". He emphasized to strengthen protection for intellectual property person more than one time, and let the person gain due benefits. Because he was much clearer than anybody, if one nation's talents were not given benefits, the nation was impossible to develop, being prosperous and strong. The "pedantic" of the intellectuals should not be pedantic absolutely. Intellectuals should have beliefs, and have devotion for their beliefs. It is well-known that Zheng teacher's scholarship is rigorous and serious, meantime, he is very principled before major issues of principles. At one time, a friend of mine sighed before me: Zheng teacher can accept good advice in Legal committee of National People's Congress. But Zheng teacher was also a person that was hard to persuade. Even a word and a clause, without enough evidence, he cannot give up his own opinion due to human relationship or face. If the devotion spirit for belief is considered as "pedantic" of intellectuals, Zheng teacher is "pedantic" indeed.

Guan: after Zheng teacher passed away, many people considered him to be a real scholar and intellectual on the Internet. Disciples often discussed with him about learning and how to conduct themselves, so they must feel deeper on this aspect. Whatever exploring learning and conducting themselves, the reason is inconsistent. Zheng teacher contributed its achievement to his own diligence, so he also required his disciples to remember this. I remembered when I took an entry test, he repeatedly advised me to be a practical man and learn knowledge diligently after he asked me some professional questions. During Teachers' Day, new disciples visited him, he specially sent NPC covers autographed by himself with "Sturdy, diligence and innovation" to each disciple. However, he was very rigorous to others and to himself on the aspect of academic character, he was never hesitate on the aspect of training and supporting students. Is everyone having the same feeling?

Tang: in my impression, Zheng teacher was a person that did not care much more about living standards but was one that was very strict with himself, family members and students on aspect of character requirement. Though he did not object his students selecting occupation according to personal interest, he never encouraged students to take aims at getting rich or promoting to a higher position. Nearly thirty years after he returned to Beijing to work, his "titles" were more and more, but all the titles were free, and meantime it also cannot be drawn on and exchange "real power". This did not mean that he had no chance to gain this title of "real power", but he himself intended to choose to deal with money and power. He always thought that only doing this he could ensure to adhere to neutral position stably at any time and at any occasion, and could confidently show and adhere to his own opinions. Because it is not a secret in the academic community that the students' works were published in the name of mentors. But Zheng teacher never allowed his students to write a word for his works and also never required students to search any materials for him during nearly twenty years of guiding work for postgraduate. On the contrary, when he knew that one student lacked related materials when studying certain problems, he always provided publications for reference from his own mastered materials as possible as he could. During three years of learning, each student of him took his read materials from his crowded study more than once. Some materials were even marked by him carefully. Maybe the students had never met so good teacher before, many students of him even (of course including me) thought at the bottom of their hearts that he was best to each student, or each student was the best in the teacher's heart.

Guan: Zheng teacher always did his best to help students. When I wrote doctoral papers, he gave me his endorsed material more than once and helped me to clarify my ideas. After defense, I was anxious to return the materials, he smiled and said: "Don't worry, you can return them to me after your book is published." but unexpectedly, I cannot return his materials and books. After Zheng teacher passed away, the elder sister Xue Hong who he appreciated so much wrote in the memorials, "No matter how long the titles are before Zheng teacher's name, he is always the most truly and pure person forever."; "He poured all efforts to each student and placed hope for everyone. As long as he can do, he treats the difficulty of each student as his own thing. He is willing to help his students silently. Sometimes even his students themselves do not know." becoming the best teacher in the heart of each student is his personal charm. Zheng teacher left us at the time when his academic career is peak. Each student that loved him, including people who listened his teaching at different occasion, was hard to control their sadness. I remembered that Tang Guangliang took the led by drafting the memorial speech, I think that everyone still remembers that now?

Tang: Yes, this memorial speech is: Zheng teacher, well all the way!" Its contents are as follows:

On September 10^th, 2006, when all Chinese teachers celebrated the 22^nd Teacher's Day in each ways, you left us. We only felt it was a sudden, but not surprised. Because we had known your sickness at the moment of your confirmed diagnosis, that day was approaching step by step.

For more than one year, we always carefully read you just a few words when we went to work every Tuesday or when there had other parties, bcause we were afraid that we could not work and live unconcernedly for our concern to your health. We always kept silent that: without your news was the best news. Maybe you did not know, we wanted to know your situation everyday. Although the communication was so advanced that we could contact with you at each moment, we never dialed your number. Even if we intended to ask you some problems by mail, we would give up clicking the sending button, because we were unwilling to disturb your several days of quietness in more than sixty years.

September 11 was doom to be a special day in history. In the morning, we received your news. Although we realized the seriousness, we could not accept the fact whatever: you left us. This day, our hearts, our souls and our consciousness were all gone with you; each person's brain was blank. Except ringing up, sending mail and fax to notice the news that everyone that knew you and did not want to hear, we did not know what we could do. We were just like the lost children...

You left us though you were no more than 62 years old, it was the best time to relieve massive accumulation, display your profound learning, expose your broad mind, distribute fascinating charm, teach young students, service decision making body and benefit the masses.

You left in a hurry, silently and desperately, and did not give a choice for those who respected and admired, depended on and care about you.

     You left with your thin body, with modest, gentle and simple smile, with the miss from relatives, friends, colleagues, disciples and those strangers who knew you but you did not knew them, with the regret from Chinese intellectual property and intellectual property person as well as the pity from yourself...

     You left, but your straightforwardness and sincerity for treating people, your funny and sharp words, your serious and strict attitude on learning knowledge, your unique views and penetrating judgments for analysis of the problems were still with us. Your writings and your various photos would become permanent collection and memory for us and our offspring.

You left, but the Chinese intellectual property persons were all shocked, sad, sympathized and sighed. You left, however, the Chinese intellectual property field lost a good teacher, a good friend, a stand-up pillar, a tower guiding the journey in the night, a oasis full of vitality, and a high mountain that can be depended on by supporters and also be feared by opponents. You left, most people who benefited from intellectual property felt lonely and hesitated in Chinese and all over the world, because they lacked a brave defender, a fellow who was willing to devote his life for intellectual property career without any return.

But you left so suddenly that we were not prepared psychologically, and you did not give us some hints in advance, even did not let us say "Goodbye" to you. Just for us to hear a few words from you at the bedside, to look at you at a distance, to hear your breath through telephone and only receive a mail from you, all of which was none when you left us.

You left, however, Chinese intellectual property career would not cease to advance, because you had selected a good direction for development with other elder people, and paved a main line to reach the shore smoothly though it might still have trouble.

You left because you were too tired indeed, here cannot provide a place to restore your vigor. Though all the people around you loved and respected you so much, and were willing to do something for you as possible as they could, we cannot give you energy that you needed to refresh yourself and cannot help you find effective prescription and sharp swords to overcome your disease. We'd rather choose to let you go than see you bear sufferings and pain, you could go to a place where it was no pain and sufferings, where you could discard all troubles and burdens and relax yourself thoroughly, where it was quiet, safe, peaceful and serene for rest.

You left so that you were no longer worried about legal terminology mistranslation, no longer bemoaned for legal provision misreading and no longer worried about a open infringement in nobody's business, not mention to call out for a misjudged case in remote place.

You left well all the way and looked after yourself.

You left and we would meet some day in the other end of life...

In the twinkling of an eye, the teacher left us more than half a year. The earth goes round and round, the society keeps developing, and we also keep doing our own things respectively. Maybe some day, it will not mention Zheng Chengsi in the intellectual property field; may be at one moment, another person will be considered as the "first person of Chinese intellectual property". However, Zheng Chengsi's name has been engraved on the first page of history files for Chinese intellectual property forever.

Tang Guangliang: Male, age is 44. Associate professor in Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciencess; secretary general at intellectual property center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, deputy secretary general for Intellectual Property Law under China Law Society Institute, arbitrator of Arbitration Agency in China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, the first postgraduate for Mr. Zheng Chengsi (1987-1990).

Guan Yuying: Female, associate professor in Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, doctor of law. She published personal monograph of "Folk literature and art protection in intellectual property view", participated in several subject researches in provincial and ministerial level, and published dozen of papers on many core legal theory publications of at home and abroad.

Translated by Xu Qiyuan.

Editor: Wang Daohang